One of the most important skills for Product Managers to master is product strategy. It is a core requirement before a PM rises to the more senior ranks of the profession. Let's dive into this all-important topic further!
Product strategy is the blueprint for building great products. The best way to understand more deeply what product strategy is is to understand what it means to have a great product. Let’s start there.
A great product primarily does two things:
- Solves a problem for a group of people
- Solves a problem in a way that is financially viable for you, the maker of the product
This seems very simplistic on the surface, but the important detail is that these two things are deeply intertwined. It’s often hard to know where one begins and the other one ends.
Let’s start with Solves a problem for a group of people! Yes, of course we want to build a product that solves a problem for a group of people. If we look around, there are no shortage of problems that we can solve. There are few problems that you and your team are probably interested in solving. There are few problems that your organization is interested in solving and support you and your team in doing so. This narrows thing down quite a bit.
The next is Solving the problem in a way that is financially viable. Unless you are a nonprofit with an all-volunteer workforce and no expenses, there is some monetization strategy that keeps the lights on. In looking at the problems you are solving, you need to ask yourself: what type of solutions would lead to your company making money? What will cause your customers to part with their hard earned cash, data, or time in exchange for using your service?
Aligning the answers to Solves a problem for a group of people with Solves a problem in a way that is financially viable is a hugely complicated task. Complicated does not mean impossible, and the techniques for being able to make this alignment happen in a cohesive way is broadly known as product strategy. You can’t build great products without it!
Conclusion
Hopefully this helped you to better understand what product strategy is by looking at it through the lens of building great products. You can interact with this article on Twitter / X, LinkedIn, or TikTok if you want to share it with your networks there.
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